Ways exercise makes you look gorgeous and feel fantastic

Working out isn’t all about losing weight or trying to stay in shape.

The rewards of exercise extend far beyond slimming down, exercise makes you look gorgeous and feel fantastic also.

From research, we have found out that every cell in the human body benefits from physical activity.

And this is the reason why within an hour of exercising, you feel less anxious; that night you sleep better; and also from research, afterwards your body processes blood sugar more efficiently.

Do you need more reasons to lace up that sneakers and workout?

Here are some of the few ways exercise can make you look and feel fantastic.

1. To get a smooth and more radiant skin:

Breaking a sweat isn’t the only way exercise benefits the skin — it helps regulate skin-significant hormones and prevents free-radical damage.

When you exercise, the tiny arteries in your skin opens up, allowing more blood to reach the skin’s surface and deliver nutrients that repair damage from the sun and environmental pollutants.

These nutrients also rev up the skin’s collagen production, preventing wrinkles.

2. Greater self-confidence:

Confident people radiate a certain physical appeal and charisma.

From research, people who began a regular exercise program at their local gym felt better about their self-worth, their physical condition and their overall health compared with their peers who stayed home.

The best part was that their self-worth crept up right away — even before they saw a significant change in their bodies.

Our self-worth is directly tied to our energy levels, our feelings of competence and our perceived attractiveness, and nothing is more gorgeous than the self-assurance that comes from feeling good in your own skin.

3. Less stress and anxiety:

Anxiety, fearfulness and uncertainty all drain your vitality and dampen your mood, which in turn tends to show on your face and in the way you carry yourself. Exercise has been shown to alleviate most mild to moderate cases of anxiety, and can very quickly improve mood.

4. Better Immunity and Detoxification:

Exercise shores up the immune system by boosting the body into churning out more white blood cells.

You don’t get that worn-down sick look that comes from feeling under the weather, and small blemishes and wounds of all kinds heal faster.

There is no supplement or medication that has proven to be as strong as regular exercise in improving the immune system’s ability to detect and destroy invaders.

5. Less Visceral Fat

Visceral fat is the body fat stored within the abdominal cavity and is therefore stored around a number of important internal organs such as the liver, pancreas and intestines.

Yes, exercise can help you lose that, boosting your overall vitality and your looks.

Regular exercise trains the body to burn visceral fat more efficiently.

I hope with these few points, you would take exercise more serious?. Do you want to take part of our monthly weightloss challenge tagged FITBY30, click on the link bit.ly/FITBY30

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Five food habits you should form at age 30

Habits

With age comes change. Not just in your career, or finance, or relationships, but also in your body. And when the rules of a game change, successful players know to change their strategy.

The same is true for your body. At 30, your body is changing and you probably should not expect it to go at full steam as it was wont to. Sadly, this is one of the realities of life.

So at age 30, what nutritional habits should you form in order to age gracefully?

Cut down on the sodas

Yes, it could be difficult, but quitting sodas, or soft drinks, should be priority. At 30, you should be working on reducing your sugar intake as sodas are loaded with tonnes of sugar. You also get some dose of caffeine too from them.

Endeavor to replace soda with homemade fresh fruit juice. Keep it chilled and you won’t miss soda a bit.

Be sober

Sometimes, and if possible most times, say no to that tempting bottle of alcohol. Celebrate your soberness. Studies have linked alcohol with a higher risk of kidney or liver failure, or both. Some other studies also named alcohol as a risk factor to some types of cancer. You cannot be too cautious when it comes to maintaining your good health.

Limit the tasty fries

Even the less tasty ones, all fries should be consumed with measure. They contain loads of calories and your schedule at 30 might not afford you the level of physical activity needed to burn them. So, why gain the weight in the first place. Your bones are not getting any stronger, you should therefore limit the weight you are putting on them.

Bid chocolates and confectioneries farewell

Wake up! This is thirty, not thirteen. Chocolates, though yummy, are not your friends. Beyond adding to your baggage of calories and blood sugar, they are also damaging you oral health. If you would rid your diet of chocolates and sweets, you teeth can actually last you a life time.

What about pancakes, doughnuts, and other junks? They all add up to give you an overload of calories. You should focus on eating food with plenty fibres, and that does not include refined products.

Reduce you consumption of canned foods

Canned foods may contain unhealthy measure of preservatives. Instead of canned foods, look for fresh alternatives. You should also form a habit of eating homemade meals a with balanced diet. A meal planner could help you through this.

At 30, you should make healthier choices with respect to your health.

How are you maintaining your youthfulness in order to age gracefully? Share your tips with us in the comment box. Cheers!

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Eating right: take charge of your health and life

Right

Eating right. What does it mean? It means different things to different people. The nutritionist will tell us it means consuming the right quantities of foods from all food groups in order to lead a healthy life.

The food groups as we all know are Carbohydrate, Protein, fat, Fruits and Vegetables, Diary, fiber etc.

Thus, when we combine all these in our meals we say we have taken a balanced diet.

But I say eating right is all about YOU. It’s about you and your goals.

When you eat right, you feel good about yourself and your food choices. You eat a variety of foods that provide the nutrients you need to be fit and in shape. You are investing in your body and your future by not overeating or taking in more calories that your body needs.

The World Health Organisation (W.H.O) gave 5 recommendations concerning Healthy eating:

  • We should aim for an energy balance and a healthy body weight
  • We should limit our energy consumption from total fats. We should aim for more unsaturated fats and not saturated fats.
  • We should up our consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts.
  • We should consume as little simple sugars as possible.
  • We should limit our Salt/sodium consumption.

As simple as all these appear, how many of us really practice these. When we eat our foods matters as much as what we eat.

Let’s take the normal day scenario of the Working Mom:

She wakes up early and starts getting ready for the day. She gets the kids prepared for school, if she is lucky she prepares their lunch, if not she branches at the fast food joint on her way for their lunch. The kids may or may not take any breakfast. If they do, maybe cereal or a slice of bread and a cup of beverage. Meanwhile, mom didn’t take anything hoping to take a cup of tea at work.

She drops the kids at school then hurries to work. She gets to work and she gets neck deep into the day’s activities. At around 11a.m, she starts feeling hunger pangs and she remembers “oh! I’ve not had anything”! The next thing she sends someone to buy a drink, a coke or a pepsi, and a pie and she eats! She doesn’t have time to eat a proper meal.

By the time she gets home, she balances to a large bowl of Eba and assorted meats. Because she is very hungry. She has not had any meal all day. And guess what time this is? It’s 9.30pm in the night.

As eating healthy is a nutritional lifestyle that promotes good health, another part to this is regular physical activity. To most of us, we say we are very active. But I bet this is not true.

We sit in air-conditioned car to the office, at the office, we sit all day till close of work. No form of exercise whatsoever. We believe there is no time to waste all in the name of exercise. For some people, they go to the gym, but right there after their workouts they are already consuming their regular drinks.

Regular exercises of 10-15mins, 3-4 times a week will go a long way to keep you fit and in shape.

In all of these, what should your goals be this year? They should be:

  • Better health and abundant happiness
  • Being a healthy, strong and fabulous mom
  • Being a fit, vibrant and confident wife, sister, daughter and professional.

So how can you achieve these?

  • By establishing a lasting lifestyle modification and creating changes in your diet and exercise routines
  • Staying away from unhealthy habits. Plan your day, from your breakfast, which is an important meal of the day to the apple for snacks rather than that chocolate or cake. Planning is very key in the achievement of goals. Also you might want to have water handy so that it will be easier to take rather than that fizzy drink whenever you feel thirsty. Yes make good old water your drink of choice always.
  • Making regular exercise part of your life. It doesn’t take the whole day to exercise. Wake up earlier than you used to. You can Jog on the spot, jump rope (skipping), take a walk. Just make it regular. Even in the office, you can decide to take the stairs rather than taking the elevator. Walk up to discuss with your colleague rather than using the intercom.

Healthy living is all about YOU. We have time for others but we don’t have time for ourselves. Start slowly. Get the whole family involved. Take that walk with your spouse, or daughter or your son. Get support. Surround yourself with positive thinkers. People who will encourage, inspire and motivate you.

The trick to lasting good health lies in mastering positive fitness and nutrition habits. Be that healthy, strong, fit and fabulous mom.

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